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Christopher O'Connor
Captain Christopher James O'Connor (sometimes selectively known as C.J. for those who knew him well) was a Human Marine Captain who was born in New York City on Earth . He was quite young to be a Captain which drew flak from other respected military analysts. They believed that the group that he was selected to be a part of were not qualified to be given such power, however he proved that he could survive the jungles of Talahan V during the Conflict when 90% of other Advanced Rank Candidate did not. This was the first of his adventures though. He would never guess what would come after that planet, and in some ways, it was the best thing that could have happened to him, and in other ways, the absolute worst thing that could happen. Regardless, he would do as Marines were trained to do: improvise and go forth with the mission. He is considered the 'Human Protagonist' of the Main Series. As of June 12th, 3239, he is now deceased, having died from a gunshot wound to the head. He died in New York City while attempting to remove Troy Marshall from illegitimate power. Biography Early Life Chris was born in New York City in the United States on June 7th, 3214. His parents were of reasonably high standing in society. Both of them were lawyers, his father, Albert, being a defense attourney and his mother Marie being a corporation attourney. They both shared different lives but had a passion for justice. He was the only child in his family but was surrounded by his many cousins and their relatives. He was always happy that he had a large family and was told that he could come to them if he needed anything at all. Chris expressed desire at a young age to go and stay with his grandfather in Chicago to become a chef at his restaurant, but his father argued against it, saying that he would be far more likely to succeed if he went down the path that he and his mother did. Disheartened, he agreed with his father. He had a relatively unsurprising childhood. He grew up with other children in the large complex his family lived in with a rather spacious apartment above the 200 story line. A common name that children called him in school was 'sky sucker' because his family lived at higher floors than other people. He answered back with names like 'bottom feeder' or 'gutter trash' which sparked more than a few fights. He wasn't the strongest or the weakest child in his class, and the fights did show that he had fighter spirit within him. He met a friend through these fights in Charles Madison, a boy that lived right down the hall from him. Madison and Chris were friends all throughout their childhood attending District 32 Central Elementary School. Chris showed an aptitude for law at a young age by trying to broker agreements between classmates that were disagreeing with each other. Teachers noted this as unusual behavior yet at the same time supported it and encouraged him to grow in the field of studying what would later become his education to become an attorney. Chris was not confrontational himself, not as a child in any case. He was open and friendly with others, preferring to get to know one another before making any sort of judgment. He thought of himself as a good judge of character, though in practice he may have slipped over a few gaps. At the age of 11, a friend, Inrico Moralez struck Chris after a disagreement over studying. Inrico was stated to have taken the first shot and knocked out a tooth. Chris, stunned and quite upset from the encounter thought that he would have seen that coming, but despite the outburst asked teachers not to punish Inrico. In addition to the unofficial love of law, he excelled in other areas of the curriculum. While mathematics was not his favorite subject he scored well regardless, though his real distinction was in history. Chris was able to look into his family history ever since his ancestors first came to the United States in the early 20th Century. By the time he was 14 he could recite the names of over a hundred O'Connors by heart. He was brought up Roman Catholic in tradition with both of his family ancestrally being strong in the faith, but shared little of his family's faith. His grandfather, Pietro, attempted to teach the young man how to grow strong in love for God, but did not seem to make much of an impression to his dismay. Chris declared himself non-spiritual at 14, and his parents believed that he would grow out of it. Beginning high school, his mother and father supported him in seeking a career as a lawyer. The school system of the 33rd Century allowed an early graduation at 18 provided an opting out examination. In his Legal Studies high school Pre-Major, he scored top of his class and graduated with distinction. However, at 17, he would suffer the loss of both his parents. Unbeknownst to him, rebels of the Talahase Coalition had hijacked an interplanetary transport and attempted to crash it into the UEG headquarters in New York City. However, for some unknown reason, the craft missed its intended target and struck one of the high rises in the further districts. In total, nearly seven thousand people died in the attack, including his parents. This sent Chris into a deep depression for months and he traveled to Chicago for a time to stay with his grandparents. The UNSC Chris returned to New York City not long after. He lived alone in his family home with the company of his family robot. He was still in a slight depression, but working his way out of it through therapy sessions and medication. At this time, the war on Talahan V had graduated from a simple occupation to open battle. The guerrilla warfare on the planet was far beyond the UNSC's expectations. In a hasty decision, the admiralty agreed to a small conscription. Conscription were used sparingly through history to not give the military too much power. By luck of the draw, Chris was selected. With his official government orders to deploy, he had little chance to finalize his education. Though at 18, he had received formal education, he never had a chance to take his bar entrance exam. This was where his dream to become a lawyer died and would never come back. What he would get into would be so much more important. As it so happened, Charles Madison had also been conscripted, but he regarded his service with more zeal. His father had served, along with many others in his family. Madison's ancestors had fought in the Covenant War of the 26th Century and he considered himself honored to continue the tradition. A week after his conscription, Chris was brought to Alpha Centauri II. This planet was host to many military bases and like Reach, it served as a bastion of the UNSC. On this planet, he attended Fort New Hampshire, a central military base in he Hung Sao continent. For three weeks, a third of regular military training time, he trained with many other men and women. They were not just any soldiers, but participants in an accelerated ranking program. The sudden attacks had killed many officers. The goal was to train men and women out of OCS so that they would have field experience where they would be graduated to officer status in the field. Chris stood out again. He was part of ten percent of his conscription group that did so. These men and women were taught a technique called Conditioned Awareness. Humanity had learned to tap into a zen-like state in combat that allowed people to control their reflexes. This was something that was common to SPARTANS, but common soldiers could learn with training. Men and women of all the branches, SPARTAN recruits included, harnessed their own skills to become deadlier warriors. Chris, nervous of his eventual combat, didn't know what to make of his ability. While it wouldn't make him invincible, he would have a better shot of surviving. While at boot camp, he came face to face with the closest thing to God himself. This came in the form of Sergeant Remus Stacker, who would be Chris' Drill Instructor for the remainder of his time at the fort. Stacker was a hard man who broke him and remade him the Corps' image. He also bestowed upon him the Rules of the Corps, which Stacker claimed came from the Almighty Himself. These rules were recited every day. Each one intended to be a small bit of life insurance. Stacker wanted to ensure that Chris would surive. For if he failed, Stacker would "be waiting at the gates of Hell to kick his ass". Boot camp lasted for a remarkably short period of time which was believed to have been the result for a need of men at the combat site. During his brief stay of about three to six weeks as records have been contradictory on the subject, Chris was trained in most forms of ranged combat, though he notably scored less than favorably in hand-to-hand and melee fighting. It was during this period that he was singled out for his role in the Accelerated Training program to replace officers killed on Talahan V. Chris was advanced to the rank of Corporal before being deployed - an almost unheard of promotion, though he along with many others were made into near-NCO rank before filing out. Additionally, all participants in the Accelerated Rank program, he learned how to pilot Combat Walkers, also known as Mechs. It was believed that AT recruits needed as much training as possible to allow them to function in any set amount of environment. Talahan V Chris' time on Talahan V is one that he keeps remarkably close to himself. Official records show that he made first landfall with the 182nd in early 3232 in Skirmish at Morkah, a small town that had become a hotbed of UNSC activity in the Fratelli continent of the planet. Very little time was spent bringing the new recruits into the fight. The first drop onto the planet occurred at roughly the same time the recruits from Alpha Centauri II had landed. Chris' first moments on Talahan V were marked by battle. Upon landing on the planet, six out of the forty recruits that had been intended to bolster the defenses of the forward operating base in the region had been killed due to enemy fire, including an Advanced Training recruit that Chris had gotten to know on the approach. It was here that the warnings about making friends had affected him. His first rotation was not in the squad he ended up commanding. For two months following his landing, he was tasked to basic duties around the FOB base named Kowlee. The base commander, Major Igor Stankovic would call each AT recruit into his office and declare to all of them that none of them were special and that they would be given no additional privilege on or around the base. As if to punctuate this, each recruit would be sent to dig rifle pits to show good faith that they would be working members of the team. Chris realized very quickly that the life he had been dragged into would be filled with death and backbreaking labor. These facts would remain true during his tour of duty. Chris' much more notable life on Talahan V would come in July of 3232 when he would be transfered along with a good number of the Alpha Centauri troops to the 5th Battalion of the 182nd Marine Infantry Division. The Division was headed by Colonel James Farley, a man who would go on to become the short-lived commander of Fort Acorn two years later. The particular Battalion was headed by a Captain - Roswell Benedict - in lieu of the Lieutenant Colonel that had died from tropical disease three months prior and the Major that had been taken prisoner on a previous engagement. Benedict though had the bearing of a proper military officer, and offered him a stern command. Chris, by this time having participated in two engagements - one on his arrival and the second in defense of his base, clearly looked up to Benedict, seeing how he took the responsibility of his command but clearly understood the benefits and the drawbacks of command. Chris was an intelligent young man and he could see the inner struggles that Benedict faced. However, 5th Battalion was not without its losses. In 3233, several boot camp trainees had been taken by battle. twenty additional men died over the next eight months of combat, reducing the manpower of 5th Battalion by one fifth. Chris noticed that many of the losses had correlated with ambushes. He quickly learned how to speak Talahase, more out of necessity than by interest. Several phrases stood out to him on patrols where attacks had been common. He achieved proficiency within twelve weeks, and would attain fluency before mid 3233. After a small battle come to be known as the Pushover of Hill 112, Chris was promoted to Sergeant, earning himself an NCO title as well as now having some small degree of authority in the unit. Captain Benedict would regard Chris as something of a kiss-ass some time, but not without reason. It was clear to Benedict that the young man wanted to learn how to be a proper soldier and Roswell understood well enough that no boot camp can train a man enough to fight in a real war outside of a classroom. Benedict agreed to keep Chris close to his team, much to the chagrin of the unit's Executive Officer - Lieutenant Gregory Kapplin. Kapplin himself was a man that had been hardened by three years of active duty on Talahan already, so seeing an individual with some semblance of sanity and humanity this far into a deployment on this world some sort of oddity. In truth, Kapplin disliked O'Connor for more than that, though he never publicly, nor privately stated it. In late 3232 around mid-October, while on long range patrol with Charles Madison, Chris stumbled across an ambush between UNSC Army forces that had escaped from a sea-going craft, the UNSC Halloway ''that had been sunk from a coordinated Talahase missile strike. The cruiser had been muted from an EMP strike which prevented any unit from catching a distress signal. Quickly coordinating with the 104th Artillery Battalion through a sergeant named Hoffman, Chris quickly ordered a strike using a map to feel out the unit location. His quick thinking and ability to call out a grid position allowed the artillery unit to send a barrage of shells that would destroy the forces attacking the 39th Amphibeous Assault Battalion. The Second Lieutenant in charge personally expressed his thanks to the Sergeant. Chris was sent on several missions with other members of 5th Battalion such as Corporal Sid Romano, who served as a second-in-command to Chris, as well as Private First Class Dean Sheppard who was the technical expert of the group familiar with electronics and various types of machinery as well as Private First Class Jeff Winston, who was known quite notably as 'The Silent' due to his tendency to keep his mouth shut, even when asked questions. These four men were a good fit for one another and accomplished many tasks together. In 3233, this team was tasked to destroy several routes of infrastructure to deny Talahse rebels to resupply troops in the field through roadways. Chris liked to call this line of work 'Bridgebreaking', though he wasn't a designated sapper. One instance in particular would be a major psychological blow to him. When ordered to destroy a bridge that spanned a wide river, Chris made the call to detonate, though at the time he was unsure of whether a bus travelling across the bridge was either full of explosives or civilians that served as support staff. Under the rules of engagement, killing civilians would hold him directly responsible for a war crime, though letting munitions pass would lead to insubordination charges for failing to carry out an order, though at the time, Chris was only concerned with unnecessary loss of Human life. He made the call to detonate the explosive charges placed by Sheppard and Romano. The bus had turned out to be full of munitions, with secondary explosions taking out more of the supports than had been anticipated. The result had neutered the offensive forces of the Talahase rebels in the region as well as cut off a major supply road into the theater of operations, and while the work would earn him gratitude from his commanding officers, the possibility of things going differently would keep him up at night for some time. True, there had been no civilians on that bus, but he had no way of knowing that, and his decision had been made on impulse rather than sound intelligence. It was possibly because of this possibility that he struck another Marine three days afterwards which earned him a week in solitary confinement. He avoided a demotion on the behest of Roswell Benedict who personally vouched for him. It was Benedict who awaited O'Connor upon his release and he delivered to him a four hour lecture on controlling his emotions. For four hours in the privacy of Benedict's office, Benedict did everything short of laying his hands on the Sergeant for his conduct and continuously impressed upon Chris how it dishonored the 182nd and Benedict himself. Chris didn't even see Benedict during half of the one-sided shouting match. Instead, he saw Kapplin and his smile that seemed to mock him from across the room. While Chris responded to everything that Benedict said, a twinge of hatred for the Lieutenant continued to form. If there was any man he could wish dead on Talahan V, it was Greg Kapplin. The Bombing of Tigrin In 3234, Chris participated in what was supposed to be a raid on the heavily fortified and wealthy city of Tigrin. It was believed that a few holdouts of the local Insurrection had bastions of resistance in the city. Tigrin itself was a corporate city that had large numbers of Talahan Mining Corporation executives living in massive apartment complexes. The city had been 'liberated' by Talahase rebels. Once inside the city though, it was apparent that there were little to no rebel leaders that had remained behind. The specifics of what happened in Tigrin that day are still under classified orders and Chris never learned of what really caused what he witnessed. Approximately twenty minutes into the UNSC advance into Tigrin, a general call came over the theater's communications line signalling that the city was to be subject to immediate nuclear bombing for reasons that were only described as 'scary' by Lieutenant Kapplin. With only fifteen minutes given to flee the city, many of the UNSC personnel within the borders of the settlement sought shelter in subbasements of apartment complexes, which was what Chris' team needed to do. With scant minutes left, 5th Battalion's Charlie Platoon had barricaded itself and hoped for a miracle. Chris himself hid within a janitor's closet and waited as the nuclear missile hit twenty blocks away, causing whole buildings to be rocketed and destroyed outright by the initial shockwave. Tigrin had never been constructed to survive anything as severe as a nuclear blast, so many buildings were shredded. It is unknown how many died in the city, but Charlie Platoon had survived in its entirety, though the members were cut off due to collapsed debris. Chris himself managed to escape from the ruin and wandered into the street, wondering at the destruction that he couldn't even comprehend, even seeing the blasted remains of what had once been a man etched into the walls like a shadow. Chris' attention was grabbed by a screaming woman. Seeking to help, the Sergeant ran to her aid, only to be attacked by a Talahase rebel that had used the woman as bait. The man angrily accused Chris of being a murderer though the Sergeant claimed that he had no idea the attack was even coming at all. Despite his claims that it was as much a blow to him as well, he was struck by the handgun that the man was carrying. Seeing that his life was on the line, Chris attempted to wrestle the handgun out of the rebel's hand. In the commotion, the rebel fired the gun. The bullet ricocheted off of the ground and had pierced the woman, but instead of stopping, the bullet overpenetrated and hit the woman's four month old child as well that had been in her arms. Chris killed the rebel who had attacked him, but quickly noticed the woman lying dead and the baby crying and bleeding, unable to be saved. Chris made the decision tearfully to put the child out of its misery as there was no medical attention to be seen. He remained in the ruins until his team came to look for him holding the little girl in his hands. Chris was relieved of duty for close to a month an received grief counseling aboard a UNSC medical station in the outer reaches of the Eta Cassiopeia system. ''What he had not realized was that he had nearly broken his legs as well in the aftermath of the explosion. He remained aboard the station while healing and receiving his counseling from Fleet doctors. Behind the Scenes I should say off the bat that Chris came about as a self-insert when I was a child. Like in many of our youths, we all wanted to be heroes and adventurers and I was no different. Chris was more or less intended to be me, but as the years went on, he developed into his own character. I wanted to make backstories for characters and Chris was one of the ones that had the most thought. Originally I had him as a police officer for the NYPD, and if you look at my very old stories like Shadow in the Dark, you can see something mentioned in his first appearance. However, he was always meant to be a soldier of some sort. There was some time when I thought of him being an independent space adventurer, but in the end, it made far more sense, and less of a self-insertish thing to say that he was part of a large group of people that got stranded in EUS-0 (though the concept of EUSs was not even developed. They were alternate universes, but the name and greater lore came about far later). I also believed that the idea of him being a veteran only came about when I wrote Soldier's Log, which actually came after Shadow in the Dark, though it was the first story I had actually written in my life completely, and I decided halfway through writing the Tales of the Rainforest that I wanted to keep specifically what he did during the war secret except for anecdotes he spoke about during the series. In the Journals, you can see a few of these tales and they're generally horrific. He essentially was in Space Vietnam as a friend of mine likes to say. After a point, I realized that this character though would have some association with me, especially in professional life after this. I think that played a role into my decision to actually kill him. His role was finished in the current story and he accomplished what he set out to do. I originally wanted to have him in a coma where conceivably he could have come out at some time, but in the end, death won out. I suppose it makes his character a bit more tragic in my mind, and it's difficult sometimes to understand that it's the last time in the series that he will have a forward role. True, the Journals are still ongoing and he's still alive in those, but knowing his death is inevitable, it gives whatever actions he goes through a bit more of a hopeless feel. And some people who have read this may have wondered, why Sally? Well, I think Sally, at least as I write her (which is somewhat different than her comic counterpart) has some embodiment out of things I like in a woman - dedication, action oriented, caring, willing to sacrifice everything to help someone they care about, etc. My decision to choose her as the pairing decision was a Day One choice. It knocks Sonic out of the picture. This series isn't titled 'Sonic the Hedgehog' - Sonic's role is not integral to the plot. Neither is Chris' since he doesn't stay alive long enough to see the end of the journey, but Sally is an attempt to try to heal Chris. She wants to try to heal the wounds that the war did to him mentally. Nobody ever comes back from war unscarred, but some get help to get closure. In a way, Sally moved on from a simple pairing to the ultimate example of Humanity, and she failed. I haven't looked back on that, but with Maya in the mix, again, it makes Chris look a bit more morally uncertain. Chris is not a hero - he's a Marine. He does his job and follows orders. True, he may be recognized as a 'hero' by others, most notably Mobians over Humans (remember, there are trillions of Humans at this point - one man makes very little difference in the grand scheme of things), but in the end, he realizes that he was a man part of something larger, in his case, the Corps. I have to admit, part of me always found a bit of romanticism with the Marines, even though I know the reality of combat (I sometimes do research into how battles work and sometimes how people walk away... or sometimes not). That's one of the reasons why he ended up the way he did, and why he has motivation to do his work. Chris will always have some form of a presence, though he will never again be a self-insert. That much is evident. Looking back at him, I don't think I would ever trade places with him, even if I ended up with a Princess. I must admit, I think at one point, I said to myself, 'this guy has had it too good for too long', and I decided to punish him, not out of malice, but to keep the Mary Sue scales balanced. In the end, his death is the ultimate character flaw: he's just as mortal as the rest of us. List of Appearances * Soldier's Log (First Appearance) * The Journal of Sally Acorn * Shadow in the Dark * The Terran Incident * Infested * Warpath * Deception (Last Appearance) Category:Character Category:Human Category:Earth Category:Military